Cadets practice marching drills near the chapel at the Air Force Academy in 2003. According to a report in The Gazette, the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations has created a secret system of cadet informants to hunt for misconduct among students. (Associated Press file photo)

As a retired U.S. Air Force officer, I am appalled at the revelation of Office of Special Investigations (OSI) activities at the Air Force Academy. The OSI always seemed to be a kind of shadowy outfit — civilian clothes and no known ranks — but this stuff is beyond the pale. To recruit vulnerable kids, future USAF officers at that, to rat out fellow students is despicable. At the very least, it violates the honor code that provides the basis for military service.

For the senior officers to deny knowledge resounds with the old “plausible deniability” excuse — that is, no excuse at all. The chief of staff should fire all those who knew, or should have known, about this dirty enterprise.

J. Bruce Laubach, Highlands Ranch

This letter was published in the Dec. 8 edition.

With respect to the Air Force Academy spy system, your article quotes Gen. Mark Welsh, the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force (and the only person with authority over both the academy and the Office of Special Investigations), as saying, “I don’t know a thing about it.”

Many years ago, when I was a junior officer in the Air Force, it was stressed that an officer in command could delegate the authority to carry out a task but could never delegate the responsibility for the outcome.

If this still holds true, then Gen. Welsh is in a difficult position. Either he should have known and didn’t — in which case he is incompetent — or he delegated the authority for the operation and now refuses to accept the responsibility for the disaster that it has become. In either case, if Gen. Welsh wishes to set an example of the standards that the USAF expects from its officers and cadets, he should resign.

Guy Wroble, Denver

This letter was published in the Dec. 8 edition.

Drug abuse and sexual assault are not to be tolerated within the military establishment, period. The Gazette reports that the Air Force has allegedly created a network of spies at its service academy in an attempt to root out the perpetrators of these and other crimes. If The Gazette’s report is true, this approach, other than being spectacularly mismanaged, raises some troubling questions. Does the Air Force lack faith in its leaders? Are they that incompetent? Or do spy tactics better serve the mindset all too prevalent in today’s military and political culture that the rank and file are inept, and that any means to justify the end are to be employed?

The United States fields the world’s greatest military — in no small part due to its embrace of decentralized leadership whereby better communication, quicker decision making, and more effective supervision and control result. Spying on our own may indeed achieve the end state desired, but the cost in eroded unit cohesion, trust and esprit de corps begs us to look toward small-unit leadership as a more effective way forward.

Neither The Denver Post nor I know the truth behind using informants at the Air Force Academy. I do know that The Post’s proposed solution is unrealistic. The Post suggests the Academy “plant professionals trained in such work (i.e., informing) in the cadet corps.” Should the Academy call a temp agency to hire 15 informants to blend in with the cadet corps: ages 17-22, physically fit, and highly intelligent? Who would manage the program: the superintendent or maybe the commandant of cadets?

The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) has made tremendous contributions to the safety and security of the Air Force over the past 65 years. Thousands of men and women have served honorably in OSI, including 10 agents and support personnel who died protecting this nation from enemies, foreign and domestic. They deserve to know what really happened at the Academy. The Post should do some honest journalism and report both sides of the story.

Richard Crabtree, Centennial

The writer is a retired OSI special agent.

This letter was published in the Dec. 8 edition.

The Air Force Academy and the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations have disgraced generations of men and women who have honorably served in the U.S. Air Force. As usual with the series of Academy scandals, there appears to be nobody in charge. The prevalence of rape and drug use at the Academy suggests the bad actors cannot be contained. Perhaps the time has come to consider starting over with the idea of a new Air Force Academy, preferably not in Colorado.

Peter Graebner, Conifer

This letter was published in the Dec. 8 edition.

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U.S. Army General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency. (Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

It is time to roll back some of the unchecked power of the myriad security agencies that we know of. The wholesale spying on American citizens must end. The intelligence gathering must be targeted, warranted and justified. That our intelligence/security agencies serve a vital purpose is unchallenged. What is challenged is the wholesale betrayal of our trust. Much like voting, if the populace of this country lets our government step on our privacy without protest, we are in effect giving them our permission by our silence. Balancing freedom and defense is of immediate and vital concern.

Our security agencies must be free to do their jobs, but let the process be a reasonable one, not an indiscriminate sweep of what should be private communications.

It seems to me that we (all generations older than the millennials) generally have no beef with the National Security Agency, or whomever, reading our mail or listening in on our phone conversations because we don’t say or write anything worth listening to or reading. The younger generations are also saying and writing nothing important, but they think that the descriptions of their daily routines, including most bodily functions, is of vital interest.

The so-called “slippery slope” argument is not persuasive to me, because I doubt that any of us will ever say, or write, anything of great importance. I include this letter.

J. Bruce Laubach, Highlands Ranch

This letter was published in the June 25 edition.

For readers who feel pretty good about the U.S. program of telecommunications surveillance: Try a thought experiment and substitute “China” for “the United States” in the recent stories about NSA information collection. For example: “It was revealed that China collects all the worldwide Internet data on every individual and organization on the planet. At its discretion, it will decide whether to investigate the detailed content of that data in order to keep us safe from terrorists’ attacks.”

Do you still feel pretty good?

Janet MacKenzie, Denver

This letter was published in the June 25 edition.

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Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.